“Don’t think too positive”
“Indulging in undirected positive flights of fancy isn’t always in our interest. Positive thinking can make us feel better in the short term, but over the long term it saps our motivation, preventing us from achieving our wishes and goals, and leaving us feeling frustrated, stymied and stuck. If we really want to move ahead in our lives, engage with the world and feel energised, we need to go beyond positive thinking and connect as well with the obstacles that stand in our way…
positive fantasies fool our minds into thinking that we’ve already achieved our goals — what psychologists call ‘mental attainment’. We achieve our goals virtually and thus feel less need to take action in the real world. As a result, we don’t do what it takes to actually succeed in achieving our goals…
You might wonder what to do or say if your friend is down in the dumps, or if you’re feeling sad, depleted, moody — depressed. If you’re thinking about telling them to ‘buck up’, ‘look on the bright side’, or ‘think positive’, as so many self-help gurus advise, you might be helping them in the moment while doing them a disservice over the long-term…
If we could ground positive fantasies in reality, perhaps we could negate the soothing, lulling quality of these fantasies and stir people to action… mental contrasting allowed people to direct more energy toward goals they had a chance of achieving, and pull back from unrealistic goals. The result was a wiser application of energy overall.”
Can I just say how much I have always, always hated it when people hear my problems and then tell me to look on the bright side? Like, I can remember hating this when I was 7.
Does it actually help, like, anyone? Because it always feels to me like people are saying “ignore the problem, ignore whatever pain it is causing you, and build yourself some numbing delusions”. And “please stop talking, I don’t want to hear about you”.
Related: “A Harvard psychologist explains why forcing positive thinking won’t make you happy”; “Blind Positivity Sucks.”; “How to pacify a generation: tell them to think “happy thoughts” about chronic social issues”; “How I Learned To Be OK With Feeling Sad”
